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Christopher Mlalazi

Let’s continue with our dissection of character implementation into our story manuscripts.

The last time we talked about this , to recap, we brought to our attention the fact that the term ‘character’ in a story has a double meaning, the first being the persons, or animals, that populate our stories, and the second the mental and moral ‘character’ of an individual.

To further explain the latter before we proceed, I will again do this with analogy for easy understanding — if a lion springs up in front of you, the way you react is your character, and that is why we say someone has strong or weak character.

But for purposes of this workshop, we will again stick to the first definition again- the character is that colorful fellow in your story that is entertaining the entranced reader.

Now this is another interesting question about story characters- where do we mine them from, and particularly so that they fit like a glove to the roles they execute in our stories, and so much so that they leave the reader imagining them as real persons?

Well, we need not look far for this answer.

Our characters are modelled on people around us. It might be from single person, or bits and pieces from several of them to construct the single unit.

This technique of borrowing traits to construct a single character has its fun part – they might end up resembling a quilt of several real life characters, a smile from John, a swagger from Peter, a height from James, a mindset from Themba, and so on, but the most important thing is that the story character must stand out and be able to attract the attention of the reader, so that they are forever in their memory even after the reading encounter has become history.

I first had contact with the James Bond 007 character in the Ian Fleming novels way before I saw his portrayal in movies. Even then, and through the book, I had my own idea what James Bond should look like, a fact that was later cemented by the movies.

The story character must be able to evoke emotions from the reader – love, hate, excitement, and certainly not boredom.

If they are not able to do that, then that means that you have not yet fully developed them, and you should take time to hammer them out.

Then there is inner conflict.

This protagonist, while confronted by the external conflict that is the main plot of the story, should also be fighting their own inner devils.

For example James is a sleuth investigating a bank robbery, while at the same time he is fighting another battle with himself to quit drinking, as this fact is causing havoc to his marriage and other social relations.

Or, while investigating the robbery, he might be also struggling to study and get a degree or something.

It is now up to the writer to decide whether they want to present resolutions for both these inner and external conflicts, but at the very least the character must be triumphant in one at the resolution, or both. But they cannot lose in both, as that would make a terrible story.

Now that we have established our character, we must also proceed and create a universe around their habits, for, let’s remember, even though they are story characters, they are metaphor for real people.

In creating this universe, we are looking at things like hobbies, what they like wearing, eating, or, do they go around carrying a knuckle duster or something dangerous, or harmless like let’s say a pencil tucked behind their ear if they are a carpenter?

There are also character traits, some of which can be good or bad. Are they an honest or dishonest person? Are they loyal or disloyal? Are they kind or unkind? Are they patient or impatient?

In traits, we are looking at surface-level and observable qualities of a person. John meets Mary for the first time, and she has an open and honest look that gives him a warm feeling. That is a trait for you.

But then, let us remember also that in order to make our story characters intriguing, surface level qualities of the person sometimes should be deceiving. What you see is not what you get. The wiseman should not have a wise-looking face, and so too the bad character, true to the saying, still waters run deep.

In conclusion, while in the process of developing the story characters, the writer should be able to intimately know them, for always remember they are children of your creation.

Being able to know them intimately assists the writer in also understanding the story they are writing, and how all the ingredients should coexist.

We will wrap this up here for today, stay safe, stay writing!